Scott Rubel Dec 31, 2025 a 3:04 pm PST

This is a horrible decision. How can a refusal to allow a doctor to cut your body open and remove tissue be an unreasonable denial of treatment? According to the website of WebMD, the risks of spine surgery are significant. They include reaction to anesthesia, bleeding, infection, blood clots in legs or lungs, heart attack, stroke, further herniated discs and nerve damage. Furthermore, any doctor should always advise a patient that one of the risks of surgery is death. I have had cases where a spine surgery resulted in cardiac arrest resulting in heart damage. There is no way for a doctor to accurately predict these complications. Spine surgery is risky at best and a patient's choice to decline it should be respected. I wonder how these justices would feel if they were told they would be tied down on a table and cut open. How dare they impose such an obligation on an injured employee.